Nobel Laureate Dr. Linda Buck Elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences 2008...

Nobel Laureate Dr. Linda Buck Elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences
2008 Class of Fellows

SEATTLE, April 28 /PRNewswire/ -- Nobel laureate Linda Buck, Ph.D., member
of the Basic Sciences Division at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, has
been elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, or
AAAS, one of the nation's oldest and most prestigious honorary societies and
independent policy-research centers.
She is among 190 new fellows and 22 foreign honorary members to join the
AAAS 2008 class of fellows. Drawn from the sciences, the arts and humanities,
public affairs and the nonprofit sector, AAAS fellows are leaders in their
fields. This year's class includes Nobel laureates, recipients of Pulitzer and
Pritzker prizes, Academy and Grammy awards and Kennedy Center honors. The
latest honorees include blues guitarist B.B. King, filmmakers Ethan and Joel
Cohen, and astronomer Adam Riess, who contributed to the discovery of dark
energy in the universe. (Please see below for link to AAAS news release and
complete list of winners.)
Buck in 2004 received the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for her
groundbreaking work on odorant receptors and the organization of the olfactory
system -- the network responsible for our sense of smell. She shared the honor
with Richard Axel, Ph.D., of Columbia University.
Buck, who joined the Hutchinson Center faculty in 2002 after 11 years as a
faculty member at Harvard Medical School, is the fifth Hutchinson Center
researcher to be elected for AAAS membership.
She was a senior postdoctoral researcher in Axel's laboratory when she
disclosed the nature of the olfactory receptors, and they co-published this
work in 1991. Their work is the first to define one of our sensory systems in
the most detailed manner possible by defining the genes and proteins that
control this remarkably complex response. This was a landmark achievement in
the study of the nervous system.
The basic principles for recognizing and remembering about 10,000
different odors have long been a mystery. In a series of pioneering studies,
Buck clarified how our olfactory system works. She discovered a large gene
family, made up of some 1,000 different genes that give rise to an equivalent
number of olfactory-receptor types. These receptors are located on the
olfactory receptor cells, which occupy a small area in the upper part of the
lining of the nose and detect the inhaled odorant molecules.
Buck and Axel showed that every single olfactory-receptor cell produces
one and only one of the odorant receptor genes. Thus, there are as many types
of olfactory-receptor cells as there are odorant receptors.
Most odors are composed of multiple odorant molecules. Buck discovered
that each odorant molecule activates several different odorant receptors and
each odorant receptor can recognize multiple odorants, but that different
odorants -- even closely related ones -- activate different combinations of
receptors. This leads to a combinatorial code forming an "odorant pattern" --
somewhat like the colors in a patchwork quilt or in a mosaic. This is the
basis for our ability to recognize and form memories of approximately 10,000
different odors, as well as our ability to distinguish odorants with nearly
identical chemical structures as having different smells.
Buck has also discovered and characterized families of receptors for
pheromones and tastes, providing insights into the mechanisms underlying
pheromone effects and taste perception.
Buck, also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and an affiliate
professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at the University of
Washington, is the recipient of many national and international scientific
awards. In 2003 she received the Gairdner Award, the Perl-UNC Neuroscience
Prize and was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences. She's also
the recipient of the Unilever Science Award, the LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis
Vuitton Science for Art Prize, the R.H. Wright Award in Olfactory Research and
the Lewis S. Rosenstiel Award for Distinguished Work in Basic Medical
Research.
Other AAAS fellows at the Hutchinson Center are Lee Hartwell, Ph.D.,
president and director of the Center who in 2001 received the Nobel Prize in
physiology or medicine for his work in yeast genetics; Mark T. Groudine, M.D.,
Ph.D., deputy director of the Hutchinson Center and former director of its
Basic Sciences Division; Robert Eisenman, Ph.D., a leader in the field of
oncogenes, aberrantly regulated genes that cause cancer; and the late Harold
M. Weintraub, Ph.D., an international leader in the field of molecular
biology.
Founded in 1780 by John Adams, James Bowdoin, John Hancock and other
scholar-patriots, the AAAS elects the finest minds and most influential
leaders from each generation, including George Washington, Ben Franklin,
Daniel Webster, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill.
The current membership includes more than 200 Nobel laureates and more than 60
Pulitzer Prize winners.
At Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, our interdisciplinary teams of
world-renowned scientists and humanitarians work together to prevent, diagnose
and treat cancer, HIV/AIDS and other diseases. Our researchers, including
three Nobel laureates, bring a relentless pursuit and passion for health,
knowledge and hope to their work and to the world. For more information,
please visit fhcrc.org.
CONTACT
Kristen Woodward
(206) 667-5095
kwoodwar@fhcrc.org

SOURCE Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center

Kristen Woodward of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, +1-206-667-5095,
kwoodwar@fhcrc.org